In which the Meridian seeks to clear up a case of cultural myopia

With the end of the semester comes my usual trip south to see my children. I'll be leaving tomorrow and willl be gone from "here" for a week. But I cannot depart without leaving my reader(s) with a little something in the Broadening of Cultural Horizons category. (You WILL appreciate this . . . maybe not now, but someday)

Man of the world that I am, I have heard of Eurovision; being a 'Murikin, though, it (like much other foreign phenomena of note) has a habit of sneaking up on me unawares. So a sincere thank-you to Fearful Syzygy for reminding me of this year's competition via this post at Delights for the Ingenious. Ahh, harbingers of spring: we have the swallows returning to Capistrano; the Europeans have Eurovision. Doesn't seem fair, somehow.

Do click on the links provided in his post and ponder what America's dominance of pop culture hath wrought. And since, by this time, you'll be postively salivating at the prospect of leanrning how Eurovision came to be (a blindly random biological process? intelligent design?), I've thoughtfully provided you with a link to this, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Eurovision (hat-tip: Crooked Timber).

No need to thank me now, or at all. I can leave now secure in the knowledge that I have enriched your lives some little bit--which is, after all, the whole raison d'etre of Blog Meridian.

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Eurovision